


Endless Dreams

by pinkdiamonds



Series: Dreams [2]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Apocalypse, Dark, Drama, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-23
Updated: 2011-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-17 05:42:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkdiamonds/pseuds/pinkdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief look at a Jack who didn't go on the mission to fix the time line when the Aschen came and then was forced to live with the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endless Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Cover art by Astroskylark.

 

 

 

At the end of the world, Jack waits.

Once a week he waits for the kid who delivers the few things he can’t grow or catch or forage for. There have been several of them over the years, but he calls them all kid. The most important thing the kid brings him is information. News about the ever decreasing population and the craziness of the cities. Most of it is hearsay; there hasn’t been any real news for years.

Here, in Minnesota, and in other, still untamed places around the planet, small pockets of humanity were untouched. And of course, people in this part of the world have always taken care of each other - - with no help from the outside, which has always meant the government.

In the spring, Jack waits for the Earth to awaken, planting seeds and tending his garden. In the summer, Jack is busy, trapping and harvesting and curing what meat he can, and storing it all. In the fall, he watches the pagan pageantry of the woods, and chops wood daily and waits for winter. The geese still fly overhead, and their cries always awaken his deep loneliness. When he first got here, the mournful sound of a passing train whistle could sometimes be heard in the stillness. He hasn’t heard that sound in five years, and he’s never missed it.

In the winter, he waits anxiously for the kid and his deliveries. It was all too easy in the winter for doubts to creep in, and to think he really is alone in the world; to imagine that the kid was gone, or that he’s forgotten Jack.

He’s lived with ghosts for the last twenty years. The ghosts of all those he’s lost or thrown away. All, but one, the one he needed most. But the others? Oh, yes, he’s seen them and heard them every day and each night for twenty years, tucked up under the quilt stitched by a great aunt.

So, when a real ghost came to him, there was no fear and even less surprise. This ghost was different only in that Jack couldn’t readily identify it. Unlike the other ghosts he lived with, this one just whispered in his ear; at night just as he was dropping off to sleep, or while he chopped wood, or as he sat on his dock, staring at nothing.

“Soon, Jack,” it whispered. Or, “It’s almost over.” Impossible to tell whose ghost the softly whispering voice belonged to. But, still. Jack knew. No one else it could be, no one else he _wanted_ it to be. And Jack couldn’t tell if this Daniel was truly a ghost, or if he’d managed to ascend once again.

Jack was glad it wasn’t winter. Here, on this small lick of land, fifty acres of mostly untouched wood so close to Alaska, winter was long; long and hard. Daniel’s ghost would have driven him mad in the winter when there was no escape. The snow piled too high and the wind and cold were too often brutal for escape.

And cold was the last thing he associated with Daniel. Heat, hot dry desert heat, or the heat of his passion, hot hands stroking him, those were some of the things he associated with Daniel, but never coldness.

Daniel’s ghost was bearable now at the height of summer. Jack spent his days close to the land, fishing his small lake, or striding through the woods checking traps, or hunting deer, or sitting on his porch watching the loons and the deer and the bobcats and bears. And he waited for Daniel, for his whispered voice, eager for the sound of it.

He was deeply connected to this land, had been since he was a boy. He remembered the day his grandfather had promised him the land and the cabin, and all the responsibilities that entailed.

The family had come to celebrate the old man’s eightieth birthday: his six children, their husbands and wives and their children. The old man, bitter and cantankerous as hell, had eaten the food and cake brought to him, opened his gifts, and made his announcement.

He didn’t think any of his children or their respective spouses were worthy caretakers, and so he gathered his grandchildren. He told the lot of them he’d leave it all to the one who could prove themselves on the land. Having no idea what that meant, Jack was nevertheless determined to win.

Coming from good Irish stock, all six of the old man’s children had done their part and produced large broods. The next day, twenty of them stood in front of the sagging porch and listened to what was expected of them. Go out into the woods with their sleeping bags and flashlights and one day’s worth of food. They were permitted a knife and a lighter or matches and nothing else. Whoever lasted the longest would inherit.

Jack’s parents hadn’t wanted him to do it; he was ten and there were occasional bears, wolves, and bobcats out there and a ten year old would have no protection. Jack had argued so loud and hard that, in the end, they’d given in and let Jack have his way.

Fully half his cousins had rolled their sleeping bags out well within sight of the cabin and Jack didn’t have to see the look of disgust on his grandfather’s face to know it was there. He felt his own face rearranging itself to mirror that same disgust.

Jack hiked for half a day, finding and noting berry bushes and nut trees. He set snares for small game, hoping to catch a rabbit or two in case he didn’t find the second lake toward the eastern end of the property. He built himself a makeshift shelter, just a simple lean-to, opened his sleeping bag and settled in.

In the end, they’d had to come look for him. He had been out there for a week, his mother getting more hysterical as the days passed, but he’d won. His sixteen year old cousin, Brian, had been out in the woods five days and had come back covered with scratches, voraciously hungry, and convinced he’d won. If not for Jack, he would have.

Jack’s grandfather died when Jack himself was seventeen. The deed was made over in his name and the old man had put aside money for taxes on the property for the next ten years. In addition to the cabin and land, the old man had left Jack his truck, his tools, and a battered ham radio.

There had been some talk among the family about contesting the will but the old man had made it ironclad. Now, of course, it hardly mattered. Jack doubted any of those cousins were still alive. Thankfully, none of their ghosts had ever visited him.

The old man’s ghost hung around, but for all his bluster in life, he was quiet in death. It was more a sense of his presence than anything else. He seemed more content somehow, and approving of every renovation Jack had undertaken.

Years ago, when Jack still had his team and his lover, they’d spend vacations here, fixing the place up during the days, or just relaxing. At night, they would lie in the large brass bed, limbs tangled, and sweaty, as they moved against each other, groaning their pleasure, and kissing as if there was nothing in the universe that could hurt or separate them, ever.

They fought when the Aschen came and Jack had retreated here while Daniel tried to save the program. Jack often wondered if going on that last mission would have tipped the balance in their favor. They all died, and Jack was forced to live with their ghosts. Except Daniel’s.

But now it was summer again and finally, Daniel had come to him. As he fell asleep that night, he felt phantom hands stroking his face and fingers entwined in his hair. He wanted to call out his name, a name he hadn’t said for twenty years.

Daniel.

Daniel, who’d represented love and home and friendship and joy. Jack tried not to think of how lonely he’d been, how the days had bled into each other and become years. Without Daniel, Jack had been without love; he knew it, had always known it.

And now it was summer again and Jack was grateful he wouldn’t see another winter.

## Epilogue

David Colby found Jack in his lounge chair at the end of the dock and buried him. There was no one to report the death to and he could have walked away and left him there. He buried Jack because it was the decent thing to do, because he was a human being and humans didn’t leave their dead in the open.

And he pretended not to hear the laughter echoing in the empty woods.


End file.
